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i am among those who do complain. lightwave has a lot to show for...and work arounds are a very common thing i do, Lightwavers do ...
But if Newtek listened more often to what user "Complain" "Request" and in that, take the most relevant need... then Lightwave i'm sure would be greater.

i understand what your saying and agree ... a lot of new CG artist just use that "Magic button" and BAM!! everything looks good...but never optimise or look for a way
to do as much with less render time or what not...

William thanks for writing that.
I am bored to death from some "all the same" threads here around.
I nearly was going to ask something along the line of
"Guys how do you make any creative things when you are writing all those "articles" here all the time over and over".
Just not to be sound rude or whatever i haven't...
I think nobody will see it that way when it comes from you.

@William
As usual, I agree completely with what you write. I have always enjoyed your articles in the sadly-dead HDRI 3D. I recall that the most inspiring and useful paper I read in your writings was the one about the "problem solving" approach. Since then I have never asked myself if my projects were doable in Lightwave, but how I would do them in Lightwave. I guess this explains why each time I'm tempted to look elsewhere, I finally go back to LW as it fulfills my needs.

@William
As usual, I agree completely with what you write. I have always enjoyed your articles in the sadly-dead HDRI 3D. I recall that the most inspiring and useful paper I read in your writings was the one about the "problem solving" approach. Since then I have never asked myself if my projects were doable in Lightwave, but how I would do them in Lightwave. I guess this explains why each time I'm tempted to look elsewhere, I finally go back to LW as it fulfills my needs.

At the end of the day.... we are all problem solvers... that is what we are tasked with and what sets us apart from others that attempt to create and fail.

My personal problem with most of todays software wars is, that they rarely ever come up to the beef. (This really has changed during the last 5-6 years)
And even if they do, they usually stop by a simple feature comparison, and do not count in the actual workflow involved in using that feature.
Or, what I would personally favor, to actually find ways to incooperate certain software and its feature into a pipeline.

3d artists could learn a lot from people who only work with 2d. The average flash/anime studio/whatever artist thinks very little about trying to automate every little thing, and as a result, they are typically far more productive in terms of creating actual content than 3d artists are, despite the fact that they have fewer automation tools at their disposal. I think William's article speaks volumes about the idea that perhaps we are seeking so much convenience in our animation and modeling pipelines that it can possibly get in the way of getting work done. Willpower trumps tools.

Even so... I don't regret learning Python to overcome some of the nitpicks i've had with Lightwave's workflows.

even though i haven't had the time to FogBugz many of those features / fixes, i certainly think they help more than to rant on about how bad "LightWave Feature X" is, without giving any constructive explanation.

3d artists could learn a lot from people who only work with 2d. The average flash/anime studio/whatever artist thinks very little about trying to automate every little thing, and as a result, they are typically far more productive in terms of creating actual content than 3d artists are, despite the fact that they have fewer automation tools at their disposal.

This is very true. Here in the studio, we are all traditional media artists; having an extensive amount of experience creating imagery by hand. We moved (not completely) from paint into pixels in Digital Painting; where the tools are similar but different, but the techniques are pretty much the same—as is the evaluation of the progressing image, its stages along the way and the steps to take to arrive at the finished product. The addition of Layers, Undo and Save As made the largest difference by far. They allow us to take an image further, because experimentation is non-destructive. Of course, destructive experimentation is what makes a physical original so much more precious. Bringing all of that into the 3D world is a blessing. The understanding of illusory images is deeper, because the artist has created them in many diverse ways previous.

In the many years of creating illusory images by placing each and every individual tiny element, I wished for some sort of automation. I did, however, have direct access to the "developer" when I ran into a problem. I taught myself how to do whatever it took in order to create the illusion I wanted.

I could not agree with William's article more. Couldn't have written it better myself, and I'm a fairly good writer. All of his points have been rolling around in my mind as I read the kvetching going on here and in other forums. I've even posted along those lines, from time to time. Reading them all in one go was refreshing, to say the least. He's well respected in these communities. I hope his points sink in and make SOME amount of difference. I'm not holding my breath, but I am glad that he didn't either.

I think William's article speaks volumes about the idea that perhaps we are seeking so much convenience in our animation and modeling pipelines that it can possibly get in the way of getting work done. Willpower trumps tools.

Yes and no, totally depends on the project. Not that you were trying to generalize the matter.

But yeah, I do in fact try to solve a lot more problems using photoshop techniques in 2d than try to figure every little thing out in a 3d environment. But that's because the 2D tools were appropriate for that stage in the design process. Using 3d tools for design is sometimes appropriate as well.

Last edited by jasonwestmas; 08-30-2014 at 07:54 PM.

All that is powerful or long standing is first conceived in the imagination; supported by the hope of possibility and then made manifest in our commitment of our current physical reality.